Be good for goodness sake!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Local Washington, D.C. buses proclaim "Why believe? Just be good for goodness sake!" -- an ad funded by a humanist group who purportedly desire their members 'not to feel alone during a dominant holiday time.' (See the CNN report here.)

So, is it true? Can one 'just be good'? One humanist's answer is this: "In other words, you don't need a spiritual or supernatural foundation to be kind, generous or to enjoy the company of each other, especially, during the holiday season. Religious tenets should not get in the way of human behavior or relationships. We cultivate our relationships personally with each other." (from Mike Cubello in the Greenville News Online.)

Goodness is defined here as doing right for yourself and then later in the article as moral acts on behalf of others. It is linked hand in hand with ethics and morality.

Wouldn't it be nice to think that everyone behaved well? How much goodness in a person's actions does it take before we label them "good"?

Barbara Brown Taylor notes this: "'Responsible' sounds so conscious, so free and powerful. On the contrary, many of us upon reflection would say that when we engaged in wrongdoing we felt bewildered, scared, and weak. We did the awful things we did because at the moment they offered us our best shot at survival. In a pinch, hurting is preferable to being hurt, having to not having, and staying alive by any means is preferable to dying. Because such decisions seem driven more by necessity than by choice, we may opt for the language of self-defense. I did not mean to. I had to. Anyone in my position would have done the same thing. ... Either way, the point is to shift responsibility for failure elsewhere . . ." (p. 35-36, Speaking of Sin: the Lost Language of Salvation, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cowley Publications, 2000)

Taylor's point is that our default operation is pride over humility, lying over truth, or addiction over freedom, if we can preserve what we want to preserve. We can see this in our own experiences of life.

However, the "sin" word has been used as a bludgeon rather than as an instrument of detecting harmful and disobedient responses in ourselves. The word "sin" has been used to make sure people's "guilt meter" is maxed out. God used the word "sin" to bring us back into relationship with true goodness.

Goodness is not a meter of relationship. Goodness is the very essence of God moving in us and across the world for salvation. Taylor describes salvation, "that is, a transformed way of life in the world that is characterized by peace, meaning, and freedom . . . [where people are] involved in turning toward a new way that promises them more abundant life."

Goodness is short lived in this world. I remember how much I loved my children and enjoying them immensely when they were little and innocent of the dangers in the world around them. I remember watching over them and trying to keep them safe. I remember with joy the times of getting down on the floor with them and playing house. And then I remember replaying their Fisher Price tape recorder and listening to my voice reprimand them in the background. They are laughing and playing and I'm mad that they have taken out their toys everywhere right before company comes. It sounded so harsh. I was the one who had broken their innocence.

'Let's be good' is a great reminder about Christmas actually. We have a part in the Christmas story. But the story is because we absolutely needed a God for help in being good. God comes to save us. God with us in reality. Our part? To thank Him for coming. To follow Him for that perfect world. To rely upon Him for goodness and transformation. To seek Him with others. To worship Him with a local congregation of others 'trying to do good to all like Jesus.'